apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Gorgeous! I'm planning on painting my studio apt. in either this color or BM Camouflage. Now if only I could make up my mind.......thanks for the lovely postQ

I dunno.

I live in Portland, OR and I might dive off the nearest bridge if my walls were this color.

Either that, or my friends would seriously question my sanity.

-Chickie

I like grey. As an experiment in color we painted the drywall in our garage a kind of slate grey from Benjamin Moore. Not only does it hide the dings and scratches from our yard tools, it's also very soothing. We are thinking of paiting rooms in our house various shades of grey. We may start with the powder room just in case we change our minds. Wish us luck!

I painted my bedroom a color very similar to this (if not the same color) and love it. At night it feels warm and cozy and quiet, during the day with sun it feels light and open and cool. It also looks beautiful with other colors.

At the same time I painted my bedroom I painted the kichen and living room a pale blue (slightly grey) color. I still like the color, but it's much harder to decorate around for me, and I like the soft grey much, much more.

I painted the whole of my flat different shades of grey except for the kitchen which is strawberry red. The living room is a very light pearly grey (just black and white-the effect is almost off-white) which is surprisingly luminous and makes me think of Denmark (I live in Madrid-Spain). My bedroom is a very pale bluish grey (white black and blue) and my daughter's bedroom a greenish grey, also pale. The aisle is pale and paler grey thick stripes.... Madrid is very sunny and the greys pick up on the light while lessening the glare...

what chair is in that picture?

I really like the warm greys - the colors I'd actually call grey-brown. What I admire in the photo is how great the green chair looks in front of that wall. How does one figure out these combinations? Is there a science behind it, or is it all trial and error?
Joanne

How striking! Who knew? Grey is all around us, in varying shades, tones, textures...
truly a versatile colour with the potential to really amaze.
Thanks for reminding me... the overcast sky doesn't appear so bad today!

it's an arne jacobsen swan chair. i love that gray, looks nice with white accents as color!

My apartment is painted virtually that same shade. It's a Pratt & Lambert color called Phantom. I bought it a few years ago when the NYTimes Thursday home section called it "the perfect greige." And, I have to say, it is. It's a complex color -- it changes from gray to beige througout the day, and it's a fantastic backdrop for colorful furnishings. Several of my friends who have seen it have since painted rooms that color too.

Like ChickieLou, I live on the West Coast (British Columbia) and gery walls would seem very depressing in this climate. I think it's a trend/colour scheme that does not work everywhere.

i used coastal fog in several rooms in my chicago apartment. looks amazing with crisp white trim, bold colored art and muted fabrics and furniture. we can't find anything it doesn't look good with. we have it in a foyer without any windows and it still looks so rich and warm but not depressing at all. so glad to hear others found it and love it, too.

As the converse of Niki and ChickiLou, I live in Oklahoma and have to be really careful with grey paint. Since I don't have any shade and lots of natural light, the harsh summer sun can do odd, horrible things to it.

I live in Portland Oregon and I love gray paint, and shaded pastels that tend toward gray. It makes my whole house sort of light up as if it is just an extension of the sky outside. With the warm grays, the slight transition between the blue polarized light outside and the warmer gray inside has a noticeable psychological effect that is quite the opposite of what most assume. It makes you feel warmer and cozier right off the bat.

I see a lot of people in Portland try to replicate highly saturate color schemes that you would see in more equatorial environments, under the assumption that it will counter the gray of the outdoors. It just doesn't work. They way the light interacts with the colors creates a great deal of tension that is rarely resolved.

too brown for me. I like the cooler of warm french greys ha.

gorgeous. I have honey-colored wood trim (moulding, picture rails, baseboards). would this color work?

I have to agree with Psymonetta, I live in Portland as well and have a similar, slightly cooler grey on my walls and find that it brightens and cheers rather than depresses. It reflects the filtered winter light and seems to make the room feel bigger and brighter. At night it feels warm and not at all oppressive.

I don't think that the bright reds blues and yellows so popular here react well to the muted winter light and they only remind me of how long the sun has been absent and make rooms feel small and close.

Benjamin Moore's Stonington Gray is also pretty terrific - a very clear gray that works well in a room without much natural light.

This is nearly the color of my bedroom, painted long enough ago that I don't have the color swatch anymore, though I have a sample of the paint. It's very soothing, changes with the daylight and looks great with white trim, and colorful artwork & bedding. I'm moving, and will paint my new bedroom the same color.

I adore this color. I painted my sunroom coastal fog and it changes color - sort of grey green to more grey to almost brown, depending on the light. It's such a great color.